Little Women: Kindred Spirits
by UndomesticatedSoA
Summary: Jackson Teller and Candy Eglee share a bond that runs deeper than their desire to do their best for their home town of Charming.


**A/N**

**UndomesticatedSoA - Definition: A collaboration between Voracious Bitch and MuckyShroom, exploring the women of SAMCRO. Some characters are canon, some OFCs. Some situations are AU, some canon. If you want more info, just check out the bio.**

**Disclaimer: All characters, etc from Sons of Anarchy are the property of Kurt Sutter, FX, etc. We own nothing that you recognise from SoA.**

**Our OC's are our own.**

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**Kindred Spirits**

Candy Eglee softly closed the door of her mother's hospital room. She closed it with care as a mark of respect; it wouldn't have mattered if she'd have slammed it shut with enough force to shake the walls, which is what she wanted to do. Her mother was so full of opiates to dull the pain that she wouldn't have awakened for a charging herd of elephants.

Once she was finally outside the room she rubbed both hands over her face, willing the tears to stay in their ducts and not to overflow. Suddenly the muggy disinfectant smell of the hospital, the hushed voices of the nurses and the quiet beep of the machinery was too much, she could feel her throat closing, feel her body begin to shiver. She was determined not to lose control outside of her mother's room. She knew they'd tell her dad if they saw her break apart; so it wasn't just pride that kept her expression fixed and her head high as she pushed away from the door and walked quickly to the stairwell. She didn't want to wait for the elevator, she wasn't sure her taut nerves could stand the wait or the enclosed space.

She skipped down the stairs, almost flying over the risers, her hand barely skimming the banister. She followed the stairs all the way down to the ground floor and burst out of the door in the bottom of the stairwell, immediately gulping in cleansing lungfulls of the crisp November air. She barely heard the door slam shut behind her as she stepped forward, face upturned, eyes closed, letting the weak, late-autumn sunshine warm her skin.

She didn't see him initially. The first sign that reached her brain, telling her she wasn't alone, was the dusky smell of cigarette smoke. She whirled, wondering who had just seen her undignified exit from the building, the heat already glowing in her cheeks as she prepared to make a fast exit around the corner. She was shocked to find that the narrowed blue eyes watching her belonged to Jackson Teller. They were caught, staring at each other, both surprised to suddenly find that they had company.

When Candy's brain started registering facts again, she realised that Jax was not his usual cocky, swaggering self. He was sat on the tarmac, leaning against the wall, knees bent, feet flat to the floor, arms resting on his knees, cigarette dangling between two fingers. He seemed to be folding in on himself, like a balloon with the air rapidly escaping. He was looking at her warily, with none of the playful flirtatiousness that he exuded at school. When her shocked eyes registered that his were red-rimmed from recent tears, she realised that something was very wrong, and that he was possibly occupying this secluded corner of the building for the same reason that she was.

She nodded towards his cigarette. "Got a spare?"

The wariness did not leave his eyes. "You don't smoke." He rasped his voice hoarse from smoke and tears.

"I do today."

He didn't take his eyes from her as he reached into the pocket of his hoodie, pulled out his cigarettes and lighter and offered them to her. Candy stepped over and slid down the wall, mirroring his position as she slumped next to him, taking the lighter and cigarettes. She slipped a stick from the box and put it between her lips, grimacing slightly at the bitter taste. She had to flick the lighter a couple of times to get a flame. She coughed after the first inhalation, causing Jax to raise an eyebrow, but she breathed the next hit of nicotine deep. Just because she didn't smoke at school, or on a regular basis at all, didn't mean she hadn't tried it. She passed the packet and the lighter back to Jax, rolling her own lit cigarette between her thumb and fingertip in between drags.

"What're ya doin' here?" Jax had obviously decided that offence was the best defence.

Candy shrugged, not taking her eyes off the stick. "My Ma's kidneys are fucked up. S'been goin' on for years." She shrugged again, still not looking up. "She's been havin' dialysis every couple of weeks for a while, but they've taken her off it. Said there's no point now." She finally looked at Jax, brows drawn tight. "What're you doin' here?"

Jax looked away, picking a spot on the tarmac in between his feet to concentrate on. "Dad got swiped by a semi this morning. He's in surgery."

"That don't sound good. He gonna be OK?"

Jax shrugged, but his face seemed to harden. He'd seen what JT looked like; the blood, the bits of raw flesh that were left between the missing, much larger chunks, the road had ripped away. JT wasn't gonna make it. The docs were just going through the motions and Jax knew it like he had known Thomas wasn't gonna make it. That feeling was back; the heavy ache at the back of his head, the lack of air in his lungs, the mind numbing fear.

The day Thomas had died was the weakest he'd ever seen his mother. She had wailed, calling for Thomas to wake up, she had screamed and fallen to the ground. His mother, the strongest force of all the people he knew, had crumbled at his little brother's final breath; but as crushed as she'd been, she had still gotten back up. She'd dried her eyes and reached for him and had never left him. He couldn't say the same for his dad. For the past long months, whenever he'd gotten home from school and asked where his dad was, he'd never known whether his mom was going to say "the garage" or "Ireland", either was equally likely. There was a black piece of guilt eating away at him because recently he'd begun to prefer it when the answer was "Ireland". At least when his dad was overseas they had some semblance of a normal life, no arguing, no strained silences, no ghosts being paraded around.

"The docs are trying, but it ain't gonna do shit. He got dragged nearly two hundred yards. He's...he's...it's a mess. Ma's inside. I just needed...just needed some air."

Candy found her own spot between her feet to concentrate on. "Shit! Shit. I'm sorry." She breathed quietly.

"Dad's not been around much lately anyway. He's been in Ireland a lot, visiting family or some shit. Since Tommy died it seems like he's not really been here at all. Don't make this ...It ain't alright."

They both let the silence of the secluded corner, barely interrupted by the ambient sounds of the rest of the world filtering around the building, wrap around them like a comforting blanket.

"Can't your ma get a transplant or somethin'?" Jax asked without looking up.

Candy kept her eyes on the tarmac. "No. She's...she's too far gone for that now."

Her dad was trying to be strong, had been trying to be strong for a long time, but she heard him sobbing at night when he thought she was asleep. Sometimes she'd find him asleep on the sofa, clutching their wedding photo. Candy always put it back on the mantelpiece before covering him with a throw. He mother knew her time was coming, but she was still fighting and she was never going to stop fighting. Her body was giving up on her before her spirit would. She'd never seen her mother show any fear about her impending death. Even though her mother had spent more time in the hospital than out of it, it would still leave a gaping hole in their family when she was gone.

"She's sorta made her peace with it I think. Dad finds it harder than her. It's not goin' to be the same when she's gone."

The silence and the sunshine continued. The world continued turning, people continued living, working, talking as they sat, just sat, trying to wrap their fifteen year old heads around the mysteries of life, death, fate and the universe that brains far more educated and experienced than theirs had been unable to comprehend.

"It ain't any easier for you is it? You seen this comin' for years and it ain't any easier." Jax mumbled.

"No. Knowin' its comin' don't make it easier." Candy sighed. "But knowin' that she won't be...strugglin' so much...sorta does."

"What do we do...after."

Candy looked up at the flawless blue sky. There wasn't a cloud in sight to mar the cerulean perfection. "Same as we're doin' now. Just keep puttin' one foot in front of the other."

They sat for a while longer, absorbing the peace whilst their lives fell apart around them. Eventually Candy pushed herself back up the wall. She knew her dad would probably have finished his shift by now, he'd probably be wondering where she was if he hadn't found her at home then hadn't found her in the hospital. She didn't want to leave. In this spot, time seemed to stand still for them, the inevitable was delayed; they could pretend that reality wasn't happening.

"See ya soon yeah?" Candy muttered as she reached for the handle on the door.

"Yeah, see ya." She could barely hear Jax mutter the returned sentiment, his voice absorbed by the pavement as his forehead touched his wrists. With one last wistful look at the sunlight, Candy pulled open the door and stepped into the dim stairwell, stepping out of the soft, warm, soothing dream and back into harsh, cold, vicious life.

The heavy door slammed shut with a hollow bang, not unlike the way the cell doors clanged in the basement of Charming Police station. Whenever Candy had wandered around the holding cells during visits to her father whilst he was on shift she'd found that particular part of the building unnaturally eerie. She climbed the stairs, each footstep feeling heavier, more leaden than the last. She wanted to turn back, to return to the sunshine, the muffled sounds, the speckled concrete; to just sit and pretend that none of this was happening to any of them, not to her mother, her father or to Jax and his family.

As she put her fingers to the handle to her mother's room she had a guilt-ridden flash of wishing that the machines would have fallen silent whilst she had been gone, that this would all be over, that her mother might have finally let go; so that she and her father could start re-building on the charred remains of what was left of their lives. She nurtured a vain hope that her mother would be at peace, finally pain free, absolved of the minute-by-minute struggle to simply exist. The traitorous thoughts made her cheeks flame and her eyes burn. She took a deep breath of the fetid air to calm herself and opened the door.

Her mother's eyes met hers and all the guilt seemed to wash away in those ocean blue depths. As tired from the struggle as her mom was, there was still the hard glare of life familiar flickering blue. Candy couldn't help but feel pride in her mother's strength, her determination to fight until she couldn't possibly anymore. It pushed all the other stuff away. Here in this room, with her mother's eyes on her, she'd fall and just let it all go. She'd be her momma's little girl, she'd spend what few moments of time she could in that fantasy. If her mother wasn't ready to give up then neither was she! She'd hold that frail hand and smile and laugh and talk of a future she was sure would never come to pass, just to appease the need in those determined blue eyes. If it eased her mom and kept her her fighting she'd do it. She'd wrench out all of the pain in her soul and leave it on the other side of the door. Candy knew the end of the game was coming. Maybe, just maybe, when her mom finally lost the fight, she'd leave dreaming of a lifetime's worth of future; and Candy's own pain, her own soul's blood shed in the giving of that future, would just be a small hiccup in a dream of the life she was leaving behind.

She hoped that Jax would get the same opportunity with his father; the same chance to lie, for just a few minutes, to plot a future to be imagined headless of the whims of fate. To build a dream that could be taken to the grave, whole, pure and entire, never to be trampled by the harsh realities of life.

There were two inescapable, inevitable outcomes. At some point in the very near future, both her mother and Mr Teller would die: and from that gauntlet of pain and tribulation, from the torment and grief and trial, Candy and Jax would emerge as the people they were forged to be, kindred spirits, forever joined.


End file.
